Penderfyniad clir?

Given the welcome presence of my Welsh Colleagues, I am hoping that their fervent examples will bear much fruit in the years to come. Another Welsh revival would certainly give those of us in England a bit of a fillip!

Of course, if a female Archdeacon, Peggy Jackson, in the Church in Wales gets her way, we may well find a few people come our way.

Her motion is to prevent those who cannot in conscience believe that women can be ordained from being ordained themselves. Essentially, her idea is to allow to die out those who hold the Catholic Faith in the Church in Wales. With no Catholic priests, there will be no provision for those Catholic laity, either. That’s not what I call flourishing.

So what is her argument?

It runs as follows.

1)      The Church in Wales (CiW) has made a clear decision that women may be admitted to all orders.

2)      In order to protect those established members of the CiW who cannot in conscience receive the ordination of women, a Code of Practice was drawn up.

3)      The Code of Practice states that during a period of reception, those who object to the ordination of women are not to be barred from ordination.

4)      Since the Code is temporary in nature, it was not intended for a parallel structure to exist for Catholics.

First conclusion: Any structure within the CiW for those who deny the decision of the CiW to ordain women is temporary.

5)      The Code encourages “mutual flourishing”.

6)      Women who train for ordination find themselves training with and under those who doubt their integrity to do so.

7)      These women have to undergo extra hurdles in order to reach ordination.

8)      These women do not realise their full potential and the Church uses their gifts.

Second Conclusion: The Code of Practice does not allow ordained women to flourish to the best of their ability.

This boils down to

A)     The Code of Practice calls for “mutual flourishing”.

B)      The Code of Practice does not allow for female ordinands to flourish.

C)      Therefore the Code of Practice is self contradictory.

Thus the Code should be resiled.

Now what if, for the sake of equality, we do a little mutatis mutandis on statements 5 to 8?

9)      The Code encourages “mutual flourishing”.

10)   Catholics who train for ordination find themselves training with and under those who doubt their integrity to do so.

11)   These Catholics have to undergo extra hurdles in order to reach ordination.

12)   These Catholics do not realise their full potential and the Church loses their gifts.

The Code of Practice is still not fit for purpose but clearly it would need to be resiled in the opposite favour.

The only difference lies in the clear decision which says that women can be ordained and thus skews the argument in favour of allowing women ordinands to flourish at the expense of Catholic ordinands. If there is to be any “mutual flourishing” then it is only temporary in nature and to be repealed once the Catholics are in a sufficient minority. To my mind, this does suggest that the commitment to “mutual flourishing” has been made with crossed fingers and suffers the death of the thousand caveats. Peggy Jackson is being less than venerable in not even thinking what Catholics in her Diocese are going to do.

If the CiW were acting with any degree of integrity at all, it should never have set up a Code of Practice which has essentially benefitted from the dying talents of the Catholic Wing so that it cannot actually flourish within or without the CiW. The CofE is no better.

I really should like to make it quite clear to those in Forward in Faith in the UK that it is absolutely clear that none of the British Provinces are committed to the flourishing of the Catholic Faith as once the CofE received because of their clear decision – this clear departure from the Catholic Faith. They want you to die out. The Evangelicals are already departing for various Protestant jurisdictions. You need to find a Catholic jurisdiction. Find somewhere to go.

The Anglican Catholic Church exists and will happily talk with you about your future but, if you don’t like us, then go to Rome, to ROCOR, to the Old Roman Catholic Church. Just get out.

Get out of the CofE. Get out of the CiW. You will suffer immeasurably in your souls if you stay. You will lose status, location and even livelihoods if you do go, but the Disciples lost more on your behalf and have gained a hundredfold more in Heaven for doing so.

Mae Duw yn dy fendithio!